Product description

After twenty-five years of 'sex, drugs, bad behaviour and haute cuisine', chef and novelist Anthony Bourdain has decided to tell all. From his first oyster in the Gironde to his lowly position as a dishwasher in a honky-tonk fish restaurant in Provincetown; from the kitchen of the Rainbow Room atop the Rockefeller Center to drug dealers in the East Village, from Tokyo to Paris and back to New York again, Bourdain's tales of the kitchen are as passionate as they are unpredictable, as shocking as they are funny.

Author information

Anthony Bourdain is the executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles in New York City. He is also the author of two novels GONE BAMBOO and BONE IN THE THROAT to be published by Cannongate in March 2000. His expose of New York restaurants 'Don't Eat Before Reading This' was published in the NEW YORKER in 1999 attracting huge attention in America and the U.K. KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL is his first book of non-fiction.

Customer reviews

An interesting read for anyone who has watched him on television or is interested in gaining an insight into the life of a chef. Filled with interesting tidbits from his life as a chef from the very beginning to his work as Les Halles.

Review quote

'A compelling book with its intriguing mix of clever writing and kitchen patois ... more horrifically gripping than a Stephen King novel' Sunday Times 'Fantastic: as lip-smackingly seductive as a bowl of fat chips and pungent aioli' Daily Telegraph 'Elizabeth David written by Quentin Tarantino' A.A. Gill 'Extraordinary ... written with a clarity and a clear-eyed wit to put the professional food-writing fraternity to shame' Observer

Editorial reviews

It helps that the author looks like a cross between Mel Gibson and Russell Crowe and that the publshers have had the good sense to put his picture on the cover. And even if they hadn't, this book would still be a riveting read, though it should certainly carry a health warning. The story is basically the kitchen crew seen from the wrong side of the pass-through - as libidinous, foul-mouthed, coked-up, liquor-crazed a bunch of knife-spinning weirdos as you'll find anywhere on skid row. Bourdain sure writes as if they have balls instead of brains. And what he writes - after two successful novels, he's earned his literary spurs - is a testosterone storm in a veal-bone stock-pot loosely disguised as autobiography. Even the garnishing is sexy. By this you can assume that Bourdain's manual-cum-confessional is not for the dainty. And that, as executive chef of New York's Brasserie Les Halles, he knows what he's talking about. On the other hand, there'll probably never be a better book written about the restaurant business - passionate, turbulent, sometimes wildly funny. It's lyrical at times: hard to beat his seminal experience with a freshly-dredged oyster delivered to his schoolboy fist on a family trip to Brittany. Instructive, too. You'll learn how to line-cook, plate-up, drizzle with truffle-oil and mount with butter. You'll also learn how not to get shafted by crooked suppliers, how to whip-crack the spinach-pickers before they run off with the fillet mignon. In a nut-shell, how to ball-break the no-name no-fixed-abode pirate-crew who fly the skull-and-crossbones in the sweaty depths of a professional kitchen. And yes, he does have a wife, the elusive Nancy - the only character (names changed to protect the guilty) about whom the author is discreet. Oh yes, nearly forgot - always inspect the lavvies before you eat, and never, but never, order the moules marinieres on a Monday. Review by ELISABETH LUARD Editor's note: Elisabeth Luard is the author of many cookery books, her most recent being Sunshine and Saffron published by Bantam. (Kirkus UK)